Google's 12.1-inch Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook is not for commercial release. It is being used by internal, corporate, and public beta testers. (Source: Linux Devices)

Chrome wants you to test its Chrome OS notebook!

Want to test drive a Chrome notebook? -- apply for free!

Google delayed the
commercial release of its Chrome operating system (not to be confused
with the Chrome Browser) a bit to perfect the upcoming netbook and
light-notebook OS, but that doesn't mean that it's resting on its
laurels. The company spilled a ton of details at a special
press event in San Francisco, California, including news of an
upcoming Chrome notebook test drive program.

It even had
"sharks with frickin lasers."

Chrome-
Becoming a Superbrowser?

At
the event, hot on the tails of the release
of its Chrome 8 browser, Google bragged that its Chrome browser
user base had reached 120 million customers (way up from just a year
ago). As Chrome OS is built
around the Chrome browser, it is imperative to Google to make the
browser as fast, flexible, and powerful as possible.

Google
made it clear that while Chrome may be doing well, it still isn't
satisfied with performance. To better its browser, it announced
two key technologies.

The first uses a technique called
adaptive Javascript compiling. Google dubs this effort
Crankshaft. Basically, typical interpreted Javascript code is
like telling someone who speaks a foreign language instructions via a
translator -- it takes longer to get stuff done. So
just-in-time (JIT) compilation came along. To borrow the
previous analogy, that'd be like first learning the foreign language
(machine code) words for your tasks and then using those, instead of
the translator, whenever it was needed.

But the best
approach is to mix the interpreter and the JIT compilation as
necessary. For uncommon tasks, the interpreter is used.
For common tasks the JIT compiler is employed. And the system
learns and adapts to your actions over time to figure out which to do
as which -- hence adaptive compilation.

The second key
technology is WebGL. The internet companion to OpenGL, WebGL
does exactly what you programmers might imagine -- provide 3D
graphics within a browser. In a demo Google showed off a feisty
3D aquarium populated with sharks that, yes, had laser beams
attached to their foreheads, which they happily fired away.

So
with WebGL, Google can make sure that its Chrome operating system can
at least provide the kind of gaming experiences that users enjoy
today on the iPhone -- including those of a 3D flavor.

Chrome
OS: The Department of Printing, Syncing, Sales, and SecurityLike
Android, Chrome OS is a highly customized Linux distribution.
The source code is currently available to developers, but exact
details about the company's full hardware and software vision have
been lacking. Google also filled in some of those blanks,
detailing the critical advances to be featured the release Chrome OS
hardware/software.

To start it revealed more
details on its Google
Cloud Print scheme. Basically Cloud Print lets you connect
a printer by clicking a widget within your Chrome browser. How
did it do that considering those printers require all sorts of
drivers? Well, the magic is that Google stores all the drivers
online.

The service already has a live landing page here and
is expected to begin being rolled out to the dev channel of the
Chrome browser.

Another crucial feature of Chrome OS will be
syncing. With syncing, Google will store on the cloud critical
info, such as bookmarks, launchers, themes, and extensions.
Your data is tied to your account, meaning that if you use a Chrome
OS computer at home, you can sign in a Chrome OS computer at work and
be greeted by the same environment (if you want).

Perhaps the
most important on the Chrome OS features fleshed out on Tuesday was
Web Store, the in-browser equivalent to Android Marketplace or
Apple's App Store. The apps are powered primarily by a mix of
Javascript and HTML5.
Chrome Web
Store is now live, and you can check it out for yourself
from a Chrome 8 browser.

Defying some people's expectations,
the store does not only feature
internet apps, but also web pages. Thus much of the initial
content is vanilla web sites, and not the slick web programs that one
might hope for. This could be a slipping point for Google as it
may become hard to weed actual apps out from the ones that are just
web sites.

Still, there are some promising early apps like
the Gilt shopping app
and the ESPN sports
photo viewer. These apps look and feel like an iPad app, in
that they have a polish UI and attractive graphics.

Google
VP Linus Upson says that Google doesn't plan on making any money off
the store; Google's cut of revenue from paid apps will just go
towards covering costs, with developers getting the rest. And
Google is giving developers plenty of ways to get additional revenue,
in addition to direct purchase costs. Like with iOS developers
can place in-app ads (Google driven, of course), can offer
subscriptions, or add in-app purchases.

A final note on apps
-- while basic word processing, image editing, and music apps are
expected to be readily available, some users may lust for the ability
to run Windows apps on Chrome. To that end Google has paired
with Citrix to produce Citrix Receiver for Chrome OS. The
receiver app will act as a virtual machine, allowing users to run
Windows apps, such as Microsoft Office or sales software.

The
issue of apps and security go somewhat hand in hand. As all
apps will run in the browser, Google's first line of defense in
Chrome OS will be sandboxing each of the running apps, which Chrome
handles similarly to the sandboxing of website tabs. And all
user data stored locally on the machine (e.g. documents and mp3s) are
automatically encrypted.

Software security only goes so far,
though, so Google has implemented a special hardware upgrade to make
sure its system is super secure. Using a technology called
Verified Boot, when you turn on your Chrome OS computer, it will
first read from a special read-only chip. The chip works with
an algorithm to check the signatures of all the "pieces" of
Chrome OS including apps and stored files. In doing so it makes
sure that your system wasn't compromised by a crafty piece of malware
that escaped the sandbox.

Do
YOU Want to Test Chrome OS?

The
bulk of Google's early testing will be accomplished via corporate
partnerships. Apparently the corporate world is very keen on
Google's vision of super-secure browser driven computing, especially
now that Windows app accessibility has been added.

Google
has already has lined up a number of volunteers for its beta testing
program -- American Airlines, Virgin America, Cardinal Health,
Appirio, Logitech, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Speaking
of beta testing, that was probably the biggest news at the event.
While the source code for Chrome OS has been freely available for
about a year, Google is preparing to give business and personal users
the chance to try actual beta Chrome OS hardware.
Google's thousands of employees have been test driving the device for
the last couple months. And as mentioned, that test program
will soon expand to encompass a slew of high profile business users.
And last, but not least, it hopes that you will
test out its hardware.

Testers get a special notebook called
the Cr-48. The device was designed by an unnamed manufacturer
and is not intended to be sold as an actual release product -- its
sole purpose is to test and fine-tune the Chrome OS experience.

It
sports a 12.1-inch screen, a full-sized keyboard with some tweaks
(e.g. the caps lock key has been shifted and replaced by an
Android-esque search button). Google says there is no built-in
disc drive, though it may be possible to connect an external disc
drive or SD card reader via the single external USB port that was
shown in the demo model (or it's possible that this port can only be
used for USB mice).

The notebook is powered by an
Intel processor, features built in 802.11n Wi-Fi 3G, sports 3G
connectivity via a Qualcomm modem, and weighs 3.8 lbs. It boots
in an impressive 10 seconds, and resumes from sleep "instantly"
(perhaps Google is beta testing bending the laws of physics).
The battery life is approximately 8 hours, with 8 days of
standby.

Want to jailbreak the laptop? Unlike Apple who
has conducted an infamous war with jailbreaking customers and
developers, Google is actually providing a
special switch on the Cr-48, which will put it into jailbroken mode.
This will allow developers the ability to load any additional
software necessary to test their programs.

So, do you want to
try out the Cr-48 and Chrome OS?

If you're older than 18 and
live in the U.S., you can apply here.
There's also word that there may be a YouTube video contest, details
of which should pop up here.

Chrome
OS: Launching Mid-2011

Oh,
Google also happened to mention a new launch date for the operating
system. The list of launch partners has transfigured from Acer,
ASUS, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Toshiba to just Acer and Samsung.
Google says that Acer and Samsung will launch Chrome OS netbooks and
notebooks in mid-2011 It mentioned that other OEMs should soon
follow with Chrome OS products of their own -- OEMs which likely
include the missing members of the initial lineup.

The good
news for potential buyers is that Google has worked out a special
deal for wireless connectivity with Verizon. Chrome OS users
will get 100 MB of free LTE data a month, to supplement whatever
Wi-Fi connectivity they find.

While Google showed offline
versions of some of its apps, the OS is built with the mindset that
you're web connected, so good wireless connectivity is a must.
Wi-Fi with sparing use of 3G provides users with the most affordable
option to that end. But Google is making sure that users can
purchase services from Verizon without having to sign up for a
contract. Services can be purchased on a daily, weekly, or
monthly basis. For example, if a user knows they have a
high-traffic day away from Wi-Fi, they can buy a day of presumably
unlimited usage from Verizon for $9.99.

Overall this deal
seems pretty good, between the no-contracts and the inclusion of a
small amount of free monthly 3G data.

Expect more details on
precise hardware launch dates and the data plan as we roll into 2011.